CUEmu - Thread Posts

Narak

Thu May 06, 2004 3:18 pm

Well I quit SWG the day that "droid handler" idea came up, thinking to myself "those devs just dont get it". But now, thanks to our community and correspondent, we finally got some loving - after almost a year of being totally ignored - and I reactivated my account. I played quite a lot recently and really enjoyed the profession, playing with all those new modules. Sales are going well although I had to start all over again without an established customer base.

But now after the initial enthusiasm has cooled down a bit, I am getting more and more displeased again. Especially when I start pondering, get a lot of cool ideas for droid functionality that could be implemented andthink ofthe agreat potential droids - and this whole game - actually have. But it took such a long time until we gotthese improvements! The profession is "ok" now, but still far from perfect. How long will I have to wait until there will be more improvements, or at least current bugs fixed? What scares me is that the devs seem quite pleased with the latest patch, pat themselves on the back and move on to other things again. I am definately not willing to wait another year.

So does anyone know more about official plans? Since I was away for three months I didn't really follow the boards here or any dev posts. Is this it orwas this just the beginning?

The main problem I see is that the way it is now, the only way to get a decently useful droid is by being Master DE, having top quality materials, and throwing 6 modules of the same type into an advanced R3. I am actually making the R3 chassis in my factory by now, since I won't need anything else anyway, apart from the odd probot maybe. But what about those poor novice DEs? And what about those poor 3D artists and programmers who invested their time into adding those 10 other droid types into the game? What a waste of time and money.

What we really need more than anything now is balance. Make all droid chassis'useful and make non-masters be able to craft something useful. Now that the masters have the advantage of experimentation, we can really get rid of the lvl 1-5 modules. It's not that aMSE droid with a 110 med rating would be overpowered, nobody needs one with a rating of 35. (Only people who are clueless buy those.) And also, nobody needs a droid with just one harvesting module.

Oneproposal would be to either make modules not stackable (while making them more effective at the same time)or let all droids have the same amount of modules, while the different chassis types all would have some sort of bonus each (repair droid giving a bonus to repair, surgical droid giving a med bonus, etc) As it is now, the curve from novice to master is far to steep! The advantage of a master DE should rather be that he has more diversity, maybe with slightly better quality due to more experimentation points. But he should not be the only one who can make stuff that is actually worth getting.

Well I don't know, I could go on forever. But there is still so many things that need to get fixed and improved it makes me wonder if the devs are up for the task and if it's really worth staying. But on the bright side they already fixed the maintenance module on TC in impressive speed, although I was pretty sure it will stay like it is for the time being. Well, maybe there is still hope...

Lello Pom, Master DE Chilastra (Spiritwood, Naboo)

Lello Pom - Master Droid Engineer (Chimaera, Naboo, Spiritwood)
Norik - Ranger (Kettemoor, Shadowclan Rodians)

Reaperss

Fri May 07, 2004 6:20 am

#2

I actually made a real good living as a Novice DE. Bounty Hunter droids, med drodis with 2 Lv4 modules plus other odds and ends. Besides, do you think novice weaponsmiths, armorsmiths etc.make alot of money? Nope. DE's have a horrible grind, making master should have good benefits. As far as the current fixes, I think they are great. We are 90% fixed, which is probably as good as its going to get.

Ugo Deathbringer
-X Master Droid Engineer, X Master Merchant, X Master Artisan,
Don't hate da playa or da game, hate the Devs
Warn you we did, listen you did not, now screwed we all are

JavelinCatcher

Fri May 07, 2004 6:30 am

#3

I'd say this is about as good as we're going to get (structure maintenance module fix comming too) until the space expansion. I'd have to see how we're integrated there first before any judgements are made on our "being fixed."

----Nolhta Fyoen----Master Rifleman/Master Smugger----StarStrider
----Nolhta Fyoen----Master Droid Engineer----TestCenter
----Accoubacca----TKA/Commando---TestCenter
----Nolhta Fyoen----Master Droid Engineer----Gorath

CUAlpha: Team Droid Engineer

Korrack

Fri May 07, 2004 6:40 am

#4

As with any other profession in the game, the higher level you are, the more desirable you are. Nobody wants a mind buff from a Novice Dancer, nobody wants a health buff from a Novice Doctor, nobody wants Novice Armorsmith armor. It's the same as in the real world. If you have better product the people will come. I helped to fund my grind to Master Droid Engineer by doing Master Artisan first. Selling vehicles, droid batteries, some powerups and a few other items helped pay for a lot of my grindign resources.

I'd have to say that the Novices in DE are actually better off than most of the other professions, by combining low med modules and other parts, you can still make a droid that a Master Doctor would want to use. You can still make bounty hunter droids that are required continually. Other novice professions cannot make much product that a Master of another profession would actually want to buy. In the game, money is no longer the real issue as there are plenty of people with lots of funds. The issue has become needs. What do people NEED. They will buy it if you make it.

Forgot to mention on a realistic note. As the developers work through "fixing" each profession, the professions who recently got some lovin will be ignored. It's the reality unless they were to put a programming team on each profession. Well that isn't going to happen. So we have to realise that it could be till the Space Expansion or longer till we see many new additions to our profession.

Message Edited by Korrack on 05-07-2004 09:42 AM

OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK  __________________________
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK       R E V E R E N C E
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK   Black Sun Droid Engineer
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK     Outer Rim Droidworks
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK    Restuss Rori  5679 6517
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK  __________________________
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK
OKIEKORRACKOKIEKORRACK

Narak

Fri May 07, 2004 7:24 am

#5

Well of course it's a problem with almost all professions, I am aware of that. I still think it's wrong and poor game design. The whole grinding process is just ridiculous. There should be much less pressure on novices to reach master, what would result in amore enjoyableand longer game experience. In my book that's good for SOE.

And for the state of our profession: I am actually quite happy with the ideas behind the new modules. But I would really like to see some improvements and balancing. They just need a little more work in my opinion and things would almost be perfect. As I said, a R3 packet up with 6 modules of the same type shouldn't always be the best option. For example make the new modules more effective, but have a cap so more than 2 or 3 are not necessary. So if someone wants a droid just for harvesting purposes he would be fine with a treadwell. If he wants one for harvesting and with trap throwers he would get an R4. And if he wants one with combat modules, harvesting and traps only then he might buy an R3. But right now if you build an R3 with all those 3 functions he will have a near useless performance in those three tasks. And last but not least give some droid types a inherent function and/or bonus for certain modules. They also might want to reconsider the amount of module slots in each chassis. I think there doesn't even exist one with 4 slots right? Just 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6? Also the modules themselves need a little more tweaking, for example the maintenance ones. But I guess I am not the only one with an opinion and ideas of how to improve things, so I'll stop

Basically I was just wondering if you think some smaller improvements are still up the pipe or if the fix to maintenace modules is the last thing to happen for a very long time. (I am not so foolish to hope for even more new modules or big changes like the last one) Oh and what happened to the droid commander idea and battle droids? Is that off the list now? I don't remember where, but I read something somewhere about an upcoming cert system...?

Lello Pom - Master Droid Engineer (Chimaera, Naboo, Spiritwood)
Norik - Ranger (Kettemoor, Shadowclan Rodians)

ASHRID

Fri May 07, 2004 8:50 am

#6

Hopefully droids will get some attention in the space expansion

Hell its why they call them Astromech droids, then you got the whole repair issue (to be fair they should have been able to do speeders from the word go). In my mind droid stims are dont 'fit' and only contributed (along with that pulse repair module) in making the 'old' repair module pretty much redundant (and the fact thar we can only have 1 droid out didnt help matters here)

Narak

Fri May 07, 2004 8:54 am

#7

Aaargh! Now you reminded me that droids dont repair vehicles! (another reason that made me quit back then) Almost forgot that in my rants...

Lello Pom - Master Droid Engineer (Chimaera, Naboo, Spiritwood)
Norik - Ranger (Kettemoor, Shadowclan Rodians)

TheRealTK421

Fri May 07, 2004 9:01 am

#8

ASHRID wrote:

Hopefully droids will get some attention in the space expansion

You need not hope...........I'd say this is a "Lock".

So much so, when I can, that I'll be coming to you all get to your ideas, suggestions and 'visions' in place at some point (maybe sooner than you think).

/bow

Respectfully,

TheRealTK421 a.k.a. "Doughbacca"

SWG DE Correspondent

Co-Founding member of Ahazi DENet & SWG DEA (Droid Engineer Association)

"I think all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. ...I'm certainly not. And I'm sick and tired of being told that I am."

neinnunb

Fri May 07, 2004 9:13 am

#9

TheRealTK421 wrote:

ASHRID wrote:

Hopefully droids will get some attention in the space expansion

You need not hope...........I'd say this is a "Lock".

So much so, when I can, that I'll be coming to you all get to your ideas, suggestions and 'visions' in place at some point (maybe sooner than you think).

/bow

Respectfully,

stop teasin' us!

                          .=+.             ------------------
                  \`--._,'.::.`._.--'/   _/ May the CU       \
Acktu - Sunrunner   .  ` __::__ '  .   _/ \ be with you      /
Beta 3, JTL,          -:.`'..`'.:-         ------------------
ROTW & TOW Beta tester  \ `--' /
                          `--'

Droid Engineer Archive

Thread: So are droids supposed to be fixed now? Or was this just the beginning?